Glen Farley has covered the Patriots for The Enterprise since the Raymond Berry regime.

Belichick's conference call with the Houston media

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By Glen Farley

Glen Farley has covered sports for The Enterprise since 1978. His time on the Patriots beat dates back to the final year of the Raymond Berry regime, 1989. You could say his roots lie in Foxboro. He once won an award for a piece he wrote on the sod
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Glen Farley has covered sports for The Enterprise since 1978. His time on the Patriots beat dates back to the final year of the Raymond Berry regime, 1989. You could say his roots lie in Foxboro. He once won an award for a piece he wrote on the sod at Gillette Stadium.

(on his thoughts going into the game) “Well, obviously, a good football team. I think we all know the regular season doesn’t really mean anything at this point. It’s about a one-game matchup. I thought that the Texans really played a good football game against the Bengals. They played the game, I’m sure, the way they wanted to play it. [The Texans] had the ball almost twice as much, they played great third-down defense, really just played a strong game all the way through, all three phases. They have a lot of outstanding players. They’re very explosive offensively with their receivers, their tight ends, their running backs, three Pro Bowl guys on the offense line. Defensively, they do a good job in every area, especially the situational football, third down, red area, goal line. They put a lot of pressure on the quarterback. Good coverage people. They added (S Danieal) Manning to their return game with (WR Keshawn) Martin. (OLB Bryan) Braman is one of the top special teams guys we’ve seen all year. (CB Alan) Ball, they got him back. We didn’t play against him in the first game. (OLB Jesse) Nading, (S Shiloh) Keo, they have a lot of good players in the kicking game as well. So, pretty good football team.”

(on keeping his team from dwelling on beating the Texans earlier this year) “Yeah, we’ve played division games where we’ve played the same team twice in the division or three times already this year. Those games don’t mean anything.”

(on it being more difficult to play a team for a second time in the playoffs after defeating them in the regular season) “I think all the previous games are pretty meaningless. I think it’s a bunch of garbage. The game comes down to teams, the way we match up this weekend, on Sunday. It doesn’t have anything to do with some game that was played this season, last season or some other time. It doesn’t matter. It’s not this game. The game will have its own elements and it will write its own story. And I don’t think any other game has any bearing on this one.”

(on the Texans’ utilization of RB Arian Foster against the Bengals) “Well I’ve been impressed with him since he came into the league. He did a good job against us in the first game. He’s done a good job all year. He’s a good runner, good receiver. He makes a lot of yardage on his own. He’s an explosive back. Good in short yardage and goal line situations. He’s good with the ball in his hands and he’s an excellent receiver. He’s a very dangerous player. He’s one of the best backs in the League, no question about that.”

(on the importance of having a shutdown corner like CB Johnathan Joseph) “Every position is important on defense. Any time you can put a corner out there and do a good job on a receiver, especially a good receiver like (Cincinnati WR) A.J. Green, that just narrows it down for everybody else. When you have to start double covering, that takes one guy out of your scheme and puts more pressure on other parts of your defense. They have excellent corners, Joseph and (CB) Kareem Jackson. Of course, their safeties are great, too, with (S Glover) Quin and (S Danieal) Manning, (S Shiloh) Keo playing in there as well, (CB Brandon) Harris coming in on the slot. They’ve got a good group of corners, but Joseph does an excellent job. He’s got good skills. He’s a playmaker and he’s gone up against top guys every week other than those two weeks that he missed. But he goes up against top guys every week and they’re very competitive.”

(on having TE Rob Gronkowski back this time against the Texans) “Well Rob is a good player. If we have him back, I’m sure that it will be good to have him, but we’ll have to see how it goes.”

(on the Texans’ struggles in the red zone) “Again, in this league it’s such a fine line between scoring touchdowns and not scoring them. Sometimes it’s a couple inches or this one little thing here or there. The red area is a tight area of the field, not a lot of space, but I think the Texans have the good area tactic. They can run the ball, no question about that. They have a couple big receivers in obviously (WR Andre) Johnson, (WR Kevin) Walter, tight ends are very good down in that area, too. (TE Garrett) Graham’s a good red area receiver along with (TE Owen) Daniels and obviously (FB James) Casey. They have a lot of weapons down there. They’ve scored plenty. We have a lot of respect for their offense, period, in all areas of the field. They had a lot of big plays, but they get down there in the red area, they’re a challenge because they can run it and throw it and they have a lot of weapons. We know we’re going to have to get our best on Sunday to stop that group.”

(on what has impressed him the most about the way Defensive Coordinator Wade Phillips runs a defense over the years) “Wade does a good job. He’s done a good job everywhere he’s been. He’s basically more or less kept the same system throughout those years, which I think you don’t see a lot of that. You see teams evolve differently over the course of time and the offense change or personnel groups change, that type of things. Wade, for the most part, has stuck to his system. When I came here in 2000 and he was at Buffalo, we saw a lot of the same things now that we saw then. I think his overall consistency with the scheme and his ability to take players, mold them into his system, find the right ones. He knows what he wants. He knows who he is looking for and he gets those guys and they perform well for him. He’s a good motivator. He can get his guys to play because he’s done that everywhere he’s been.”

(on the keys to slowing down DE J.J. Watt) “Well, I think there is a lot more to it than sacks. He’s a good football player. We certainly had a big challenge dealing with him the last time. It’ll be a big challenge dealing with him again, as well as the entire defense, not just him but all of them, especially on the front there with (NT Shaun) Cody, (DE Antonio) Smith, (OLB Brooks) Reed, (OLB Whitney) Mercilus, that whole group. Watt’s a big challenge and he does great on runs at him, runs away from him. He’s a good pass rusher. He runs games well. You’ve got to block him on every play. He’s a tough guy to handle. I don’t think you really slow him down. You just try to keep him from ruining the game. That in itself is a challenge because he’s so good.”

(on the Patriots’ quick pace compared to the Texans) “Well, pace is just of an overall way you play the game. I think execution is a lot more important than pace. Sometimes we’ve gone faster than others, certainly the Texans have been in the two-minute mode or they’ve not been in it. It all comes back down to execution. It’s how well you can do whatever it is you’re trying to do. Pace is part of the overall system, sure, but it really comes down to executing. If you don’t throw and catch and block and execute the techniques properly and perform in efficient and good plays consistently, then it doesn’t matter what pace you go at, I don’t think your results are going to be very good.”